Bocadillo de Guarra de Albacete

Bocadillo de guarra is Albacete's, from Castilla-La Mancha: a fresh pork sausage seasoned with pimentón and garlic, browned and put straight into a barra of bread. That is the dish. Not a cured chorizo sandwich, not a pile of toppings, not something dressed up until the sausage disappears. The guarra is the point.

The method that decides it is the casing. Dry the sausage well, give it a properly hot pan or grill, and turn it often so the skin crisps while the inside cooks through. If the pan is crowded or timid, the sausage sweats instead of browning, and the bread gets a pale, soft thing where it wanted a hot matanza sausage with bite. Cook it to the center, but don't punish it. Ground pork needs to be done; it doesn't need to be dried into rope.

If you can't find guarra where you are, buy fresh Spanish chorizo or longaniza fresca, raw in a casing, not the hard cured chorizo for slicing. The flavor will lean a little more toward the butcher who made it, but it keeps the right idea: fresh pork, pimentón, garlic, hot fat, good bread. No hace falta haber pisado España. Use a crisp white roll with enough chew to hold the juices, and eat it at once.

In the Margin beside this one I wrote only this: open the bread on one side, not all the way through. It catches the oil. Small thing, but a bocadillo is made of small things. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.